The Shepherd’s Search, Rescue, and Joy: Luke 15:1-10

The scripture text this morning comes from Luke chapter 15.

Luke 15 · chapter mention

We're going to get well acquainted with this chapter for three weeks.

We're going to look at the heart of God for his people.

Luke chapter 15.

Luke 15 · chapter mention

You'll find the text printed in your bulletin.

Let's lean into the heart of God.

Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear Jesus.

The Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, saying, This man receives sinners and eats with them.

So he told them this parable.

What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the one that is lost until he finds it.

And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing.

And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.

Just so I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous persons who need no repentance.

Or what woman, having ten silver coins, if she loses one coin, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and seek diligently until she finds it.

And when she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.

Just so I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.

This is the reading of God's holy, infallible, inerrant, perfect word, precious word that we come before this morning.

Let's pray.

Lord Jesus, you have the words of life.

Where else would we go but to you?

So we come back to you this morning, and we pray that the Spirit that you gave to your people will enlighten us.

Lord, we pray your Spirit would help us to not only understand, but to trust in you even more through your words you speak to us this morning.

And so help us, we pray, Spirit of God.

Amen.

This morning we begin this three-week sermon series on heaven's perspective, heaven's joy.

Jesus tells three parables, stories, an earthly story with a heavenly meaning.

He tells stories that connect with us in ways that maybe sometimes just straight didactic teaching doesn't do in quite the same way.

This theme this year that Pastor Josh reminded us of last week, serving our city and serving our world in the name of Christ.

Well, we're back to that theme again this morning in a certain way.

If we're going to serve anyone in the name of Christ, certainly it will not be true if we don't have the love of Christ.

You don't serve in the name of Christ without the love of Christ.

I think most of us feel challenged by that.

Does my life exemplify the love of Christ so that people will actually see Christ in me through me?

This is our prayer.

We're going to take a look at the Father's heart, the heart of the Son, the Spirit.

Luke chapter 15, a series of three parables all revealing the heart of God toward those who are spiritually lost.

Luke 15 · chapter mention

If you notice in the first verse, the context, now the tax collectors and the sinners were all drawing near to him.

And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling, muttering is what the word means, criticizing.

They were there to criticize Jesus.

They didn't like the way he was reaching out to people who were clearly sinners.

You know, there's really two types of people in this world in one sense.

We're all sinners.

There are some people who clearly understand that they're sinners and they do something about it.

And then there's other people who don't clearly understand that they're sinners and they don't do anything about it.

Those are the Pharisees and the teachers of the law that Jesus was addressing.

And Jesus uses some very provocative images to get their attention.

In the Gospels, there's eight different occurrences where we find Jesus eating with people.

Three of those times, he seems to be eating, sitting down at meal with his friends.

Five of those times, he's eating with the rascals.

He's eating with people that many religious people would not dare associate with.

He says to his messengers, I want you to go out and I want you to invite everybody that you can see, I want you to invite them into the kingdom of God because one day there's going to be a great feast.

We haven't been there yet.

It's coming.

There's going to be a great feast, and all of God's people who have been saved by God's grace are going to be at that feast.

But the messengers come back and they say, Lord, many of them are rejecting the invitation.

What does Jesus say?

Well then I want you to go back.

And I want you to go out to the people who never would expect to be invited to such a feast.

And I want you to invite them.

Because they're going to come.

They know what a real feast looks like.

They know, they anticipate how great that feast will be.

And it's almost as though their attitude is, are you serious?

I got an invitation?

I got an invitation?

To the wedding feast?

You bet I'm going.

That's the parable he tells before Luke 15.

Luke 16, he tells the story after this about Lazarus and the rich man, and the rich man did not accept the invitation to the feast.

He didn't think he needed to be there.

Lazarus did.

Lazarus goes.

This is all the context.

Today we are going to look at the search, the rescue, and the celebration of the shepherd as he seeks his sheep.

The search by the shepherd, the first point.

He tells the parable of the lost sheep.

There's a hundred sheep that this shepherd has.

They're out of the country, they're out in the open country, he says.

Perhaps the wilderness, we don't know, but they're out nowhere.

And one of those hundred sheep wanders off.

Just kind of somehow got away from the other 99.

And all of a sudden, this sheep is lost.

Have you ever been really lost?

You know, where you just really lost.

Maybe it was in a big city, maybe it was out of the country, and you just kind of panicked, and you realized you didn't know how to get back.

This happened to me a few times.

Lost sheep.

But this shepherd does something that seems strikingly odd to us.

He leaves the 99 sheep to go after that one.

Ken Bailey, a theologian who's lived much of his life in the Middle East, who understands Middle Eastern culture well, says ordinarily a man wealthy enough to have 100 sheep would send someone else to find them.

He would never go after them himself.

Shepherds in the Middle East were poor men, clothed in simple dress.

No educated man would spend his days tramping through the wilderness for any purpose, much less one sheep.

Consider that God the Creator sent his Son from heaven to find that lost sheep.

As Jeremy read earlier, for the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.

But you'll ever, you'll only be found if you know that you're lost.

If you don't understand that you've been spiritually lost, you'll never be found.

You won't be at that wedding feast.

You'll get the invitation and you'll just put it away.

Forget about it.

We're going to talk about that more.

What does this teach us about how much God values the souls of his sheep?

That something of great value to him has been lost.

And he will do everything necessary to find that wandering sheep.

Wherever that sheep may be.

Has he found you?

Or are you still wandering?

I'm not asking, do you go to church?

I'm not asking, do you read your Bible?

I'm asking, have you ever seen yourself as that one wandering sheep lost?

And you know that your only hope is that this shepherd who left heaven, who came to earth, went on a search for you and found you.

The Old Testament prophets tell us about how the shepherds of their day failed miserably.

Ezekiel chapter 34, verse 4 and 6.

Ezekiel 34:4

God says, My sheep were scattered all over the face of the earth, and no one went to search or seek them.

Boy, that is sad.

You know what's really sad?

It's to be a lost sheep, and nobody's trying to find you.

There's a lot of people like that in this world.

That's a sad, that's a sad story.

What does the Bible tell us?

All we like sheep have gone astray.

There's not one sheep that's ever been created by God that hasn't wandered off.

All we like sheep.

We left.

We wandered.

We strayed.

So I want you to hear this.

Leaving the ninety-nine to go after the one is crazy.

Unless you're the one.

Am I right or am I right?

It makes no sense.

I'm not to leave the whole flock?

Maybe at peril?

To go after one?

Are you that one?

Have you ever identified yourself as that one?

If not, you're not going to understand this sermon.

I pray the Holy Spirit gives you ears to hear this sermon and to see the shepherd who goes after the one.

The search by the shepherd, secondly, the rescue by the shepherd.

Until he finds it.

That prepositional phrase is so powerful.

The shepherd keeps searching until he finds the one.

And then he lays it on his shoulders and brings it home.

It's not just the one that Jesus came to rescue.

He must track down every last sheep because the whole flock, all that the Father has given him, until they all are found, he will continue his search.

Jesus does a lot of things, we know, in his ascended state, his state of exaltation in heaven at the right hand of the Father.

He does many things.

We talk about that from time to time in worship, including he's an intercessor in prayer.

But don't ever forget that one of the things that Jesus is always doing is searching for lost sheep.

It's not like he went to heaven and said, Well, okay, my work is all done.

All of my work is done, and he sits back and just enjoys the spoils of his victory.

No.

He has many mediatorial tasks that he's about.

And right now, right now, he's searching for lost sheep.

He may have his eye on you right now.

Only he would know.

The rescue by the shepherd.

We cannot find our way back to God on our own, none of us.

The shepherd goes after, the shepherd searches for the lost sheep until he finds it.

Sometimes Jesus waits a long time at just the right time to find us.

His patience just blows my mind.

He's got a script, he's got a story for every one of his lost sheep that he finds.

Is that not incredible?

The creativity, the beauty, the drama of the story, like any good story, there's tension.

But then there's resolution to the story.

I wonder.

How long has he been following you?

How long has he had his eye on you?

How long has he just been right behind you and you didn't know it?

Maybe right in front of you and you didn't know it.

And waiting.

Waiting for your eyes to be opened.

For you to see that you're lost.

Waiting to see that there's a shepherd who's searched for you.

And he's gonna find you.

He may find you today.

He may.

When he finds his sheep, he puts them on his shoulders and he carries them home.

All the way home.

Then he rescues us.

He carries the lost sheep, yes, on his shoulders.

All the way back.

The burden is not your weight.

The burden is not our actual pounds.

That's not much of a burden to the shepherd.

It doesn't matter how much we weigh.

That's not the burden.

Let me read about the burden from Isaiah chapter 53.

Isaiah 53 · chapter mention

This is the burden.

Not how much we weigh, but how much we've sinned.

Isaiah chapter 53, verse 4.

Isaiah 53:4

Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted.

But he was pierced for our transgressions.

He was crushed for our iniquities.

Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace.

And with his wounds we are healed.

D'Houarde?

Nobody's healed apart from his wounds.

All we like sheep have gone astray.

We have turned everyone, everyone in this room, no exceptions.

We have turned everyone to our own way.

And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

This was the burden.

This is what the Savior carried back home.

All of our grief.

Man.

I don't know about you, but I've had a lot of grief.

Just one person.

One life.

All of our grief?

The griefs of all of his people.

All of our sorrows.

Would we dare to count up all of our collective sorrows in this room?

It would astound us.

All of our transgressions.

The worst part of the load.

The heaviest part of the load.

All of our iniquity, all of our sin, he carried to take us home.

This is the gospel of Jesus Christ.

This is the shepherd you can trust.

This is the shepherd you can trust with your life.

Why would you wander away from this one?

Let me tell you a story I've told at least once, maybe twice over the many years.

It's a story, true story told by one of our former members, and I just can't forget this story.

He knew he was on the mission field with missionaries from Canada.

A father and mother who were probably older, they had grown children.

They had a grown daughter who walked away from the Lord.

And she really walked far away from the Lord.

Wanted nothing to do with the Lord.

Wanted nothing to do with her parents, her missionary parents.

Just wanted nothing with them at all.

Cut off all communication.

Until finally, I can't remember how, somehow they found where she was, her location.

It was hundreds of miles away.

They found her location.

I don't, again, I just whether it was the mail or what.

And then, knowing that she wanted nothing to do with them, because they were Christians, they would drive occasionally, hundreds of miles, to her rented house with her roommates, and somehow they made contact with one of the roommates to know when she would be there and when she wouldn't be there.

And when they knew that she wouldn't be there, they would enter the house with the permission of the roommates, and they would just fill the refrigerator with food because all the girls that were living in that house were pretty poor.

They weren't doing well.

And they would clean the house.

They would fill the cupboards with food.

And they did that multiple times, and so their daughter, who was estranged from them, when she would come back occasionally and what happened?

And you know, the roommate said, Well, you know, some angels came by.

Finally, finally, the lost daughter realized what this was about, that this was her own parents who were sacrificing so much to go after her, to take care of her, to love her.

And one of the girls' roommates said this.

This is what she said.

If I had parents like that, if I had parents like your parents, I wouldn't be here.

I'd be home.

That gets me.

We do.

We have the best parent of all.

We have the father who created us, the father who sustains us.

We have the father who stocks our shelves, who fills our fridge, who cleans our house.

And that's just a tip.

He does so much more, so much more meaningful for us.

If I had a father and a mother like that, I wouldn't be here.

Let me ask you.

What's your response to that?

Have you come home?

Have you come home to your true father?

Have you welcomed the shepherd's heart?

Do you know how deeply he loves sinners?

Why are you still there?

Why are you still there?

The rescue by the shepherd.

Lastly, the celebration and the rejoicing of the shepherd, chapter 15, verse 7.

When Jesus gets one sheep and rescues that sheep and brings that sheep home, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than 99 who are righteous.

And that's really what he's saying.

There aren't 99 righteous.

He's just saying the 99 who think that they don't need a shepherd, the 99 who don't think that they're lost, the 99 that are trying to cobble their way through life on their own resources.

There are no people that are righteous.

We're all sinners.

We all need a Savior.

We all need a shepherd.

He calls together his friends and his neighbors, and he says, Rejoice with me.

Rejoice with me, for I have found.

There will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents.

Listen to this.

Rejoice with me for, what's the next word?

I have found my lost sheep.

Only Jesus finds lost sheep.

Only Jesus saves lost sheep.

We don't do it.

I have found.

He may find you through a church, but it's not because of the church.

It's always Him.

It's His touch.

It's His rescue.

It's His loving heart.

Rejoice with me.

And then the lost coin, this woman that loses a coin, she's got ten coins.

Scholars tell us that the coin was probably the equivalent of a day's work.

I mean, it was it was no little value to the woman.

And she sweeps and she searches.

We know that the homes and the houses of that day were dark.

They didn't have windows.

It was dark.

Would have had to open the light as much as possible to come in and she would sweep and she would sweep and she would look through all the cracks, all the crevices, because she needed that one coin.

That was 10% of her income.

And she looks and she looks until she finds it.

A picture of Jesus.

Once again.

Verse 9, rejoice with me, for I have found the lost coin.

There is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.

Can you hear the celebration in heaven today?

Can you hear the celebration in heaven every single day?

Because every single day, this shepherd is finding his lost sheep and he's rescuing them and he's bringing them home and there's rejoicing.

I'm going to say this.

If you're a miserable, grumpy Christian, and there's lots of those around, I'm not calling out names.

But I'm saying it's true.

If you're a miserable, grumpy Christian and you've lost your joy, and you're just a sour person, you don't understand this text.

You don't understand this text.

How can you be sour?

How can you be discontent?

Whatever's going on in your life.

When there's this much joy and there's this much celebration every day in the courts of heaven, because the shepherd is receiving back his lost sheep.

Sometimes I need an attitude adjustment.

How about you?

Sometimes I need to see where the real joy comes from.

Remember what Jesus said in Luke chapter 10, verse 20.

Luke 10:20

After the disciples came back with this ministry of great blessing and healing, and they were so ecstatic about their ministry, the power that Jesus gave them.

They came back to Jesus, and what did he say?

He looks them in the eye and he says, This rejoice not that the demons submit to you, but rejoice that your name is written in heaven.

Don't ever lose that perspective.

That's where the real joy is found.

That your name would be written in Jesus' book of life.

That'll change your disposition.

Does your life reflect that kind of joy that the Father, that the Son, and that the Holy Spirit have to see the lost saved?

Or are we more like the Pharisees, grumbling and criticizing people, comparing ourselves to other people to make ourselves look good?

That's not for you.

That's not for you.

Let the shepherd's love touch your heart.

Let the shepherd's rescue change your life.

Let's join in the celebration of heaven.

Every day.

The sheep are being found.

Serving our city and our world in the name of Christ by sharing Christ.

We don't do this only with deeds of mercy, tangible deeds of mercy, as important as they are.

We share Christ with words.

We invite people to come to the Savior.

Philemon chapter 1, verse 6.

Philemon 1:6

I pray that you may be active in sharing your faith so that you may have a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ.

Is that a great verse?

I heard that.

I remember where I was the first time I heard that.

I was at a seminar.

I was in Columbus, Ohio.

I remember where I was sitting.

This is like 35 years ago.

I remember reading that verse for the first time in my life, just being struck by it.

This is the Apostle Paul's prayer.

I pray that you may be active in sharing your faith so that you may have a full understanding of every good thing that we have in Christ.

Now that's almost the sermon in itself.

Let me paraphrase that.

If you don't share the joy of your Savior for the lost, you're not going to have a full understanding of every good thing that you have in Christ.

You may be on your way to being a grumpy Christian.

A full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ?

Nothing gives us more joy than to see the people who are lost come to Jesus Christ to live with him for eternity.

So here's my last question.

Who's your one?

Who's your one?

I know you're not going to save them.

Only Jesus can save them.

Who is your one?

That person that you have pretty good reason to believe they're not with Jesus.

They haven't come home.

They haven't been rescued.

Who is your one that you're praying for daily?

Lord, please rescue this sheep.

Rescue this sheep.

I'm not saying you can only have one.

I've got more than one.

But you have at least one.

That you're praying, that you're pointing to the shepherd.

And you're saying, friend, please turn to Jesus.

He knows what to do with your life.

He knows what to do with your sin.

He knows what to do with your eternity.

The Church of Jesus Christ should be a rejoicing church.

What do we say in our mission statement?

Alexandria Presbyterian Church is a welcoming community of believers, rejoicing in the gospel, transformed by its power, and responding with grateful hearts to our God and to our world.

May that be true in a growing way for this church, for you and for me.

Would you pray with me?

Oh Father, thank you.

I thank you for your joyful heart.

I thank you for your generous heart.

That you were willing to not only see your son leave heaven, but that you were willing to crush your own son as Isaiah told us.

That you laid our iniquity on your son so that we could be found, so that we could be rejoiced over.

Father, thank you.

Jesus, thank you.

How will we ever show the fullness of our gratitude?

But by loving you, by sharing your joy, by entering into the search in ways that we can do so.

Lord, would you please bring many, many more lost sheep home through this church, not because of this church, because of your gracious heart.

But Lord, would you use us as a church to that end, I pray.

Would you use each of us to that end?

I pray.

In the name of Jesus, amen.